


Confession

by la_topolina



Series: The Unstoppable Force/Immovable Object Continuity [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24652417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_topolina/pseuds/la_topolina
Summary: Father Peter, a young Muggle priest, expects to hear all sorts of things in the confessional--except for the fact that another world exists, hiding in plain sight.
Series: The Unstoppable Force/Immovable Object Continuity [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745833
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Confession

Father Peter loved the church in the morning. The quiet. The way the light slanted in through the east facing windows in the nave. The swirls of smoke from the beeswax candles. The constant, reliable words of the Mass. The flowers nodding their heads by the statues in their niches throughout the sanctuary. The five or so regular congregants who came to daily Mass without fail. 

He knew them all. There was Margaret, the old banker’s widow, and her sister Anna. They lived near enough that they walked to church each morning and, every other week or so, he would go with them to their cozy cottage for tea and pastries after Mass. There was Albert, the retired mechanic, who had never quite retired. Albert would come by once a month or so to help fix what needed fixing around the church and then he would stay for fish and chips and ale. And there was Clara, the middle-aged seamstress. She was a self-proclaimed old maid and Father Peter often thought it was sad that she had not decided to take the veil. He suspected that she might have been interested to do so now, but these days there was not an order in the world that would take you if you were past the age of forty. Too old, too expensive for insurance and the like. It really was a shame. And there was Beth, the lovely young mother of six, who came every morning to Mass. She usually brought the baby, but the Mass was early enough that she could leave the older children at home and be back before her husband had to leave for work. 

But one face was missing this morning. Thomas Cartwright had gone to his reward in the dark hours of the night and, baring his Requiem, he would not be coming to church any more. Father Peter and Father Steven had been with him to the end. Thomas had had the unusual pleasure of dying at home instead of in a hospital, and Father Peter had found it an honor and a privilege to sit with the old man on his death bed, along with the man’s gown-up children and their families. They had been surrounded by holy pictures and candles, and Father Peter and Father Steven had read all the prayers for the dying. In the end, they had all simply prayed the rosary and Father Peter had reflected that it was very comforting to know that, when his time came, people would know exactly what to do. There were many critics who would claim he practiced a difficult religion to live in, and at times Father Peter had to agree that they had a point. But he also believed that there was no finer religion to die in.

After the Mass was over, Father Peter went about his tasks of extinguishing the candles and straightening up the sacristy. It was his turn to sit in the confessional, and, although he was very tired what with the late night, he was still new enough that he did not find the task tedious. Father Steven had told him when he’d first come to St. Matilda’s that he should expect to hear every confession that he would ever hear within his first three years of being a priest. After that, it was just repeats. 

“Really, Father Steven?” he had asked. “Everything? Murder, theft, everything?”

The older man’s eyes had twinkled and he had insisted, “Everything. And, Father Peter, it would be good for you to remember those wise words of the Bard, ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

Father Peter had laughed, although he had not quite understood what Father Steven was driving at. But, then, sometimes Father Steven could be rather opaque.

This morning, as Father Peter settled himself onto the hard seat in the cramped, carved wood confessional, he wondered if there would even be anyone to absolve today. St. Matilda’s prided itself on offering regular hours for the sacrament but, half of the time, no one came to take advantage of it. He was not concerned about filling the time this morning, though. Even if no one came by his booth, he had all of his night and morning office of prayers to say to catch up from the long deathwatch. He placed the purple stole around his neck and slid open a little door, revealing the lattice grate between the compartment for the priest and the one for the penitent, and then he opened his heavy Breviary to pray.

The morning was warm, and the air in the confessional was stifling. His eyes grew heavy in the dim light. Soon they drifted completely closed, and his head nodded forward in a doze. He was not sure how long he sat there asleep before the unmistakable clatter of a family with young children woke him.

“Quiet!” whispered the not unkind voice of a woman. This stopped talking and giggling, although the racket of many small feet going in and out of pews remained.

“ _Ah_ ,” thought Father Peter, “ _the confession of a mother. Is there anything more charming?_ ”

Father Peter had heard many such confessions, even in the short six months since his ordination. They were always the same: ‘Bless me Father for I have sinned, I shouted at my children, I shouted at my husband, I gossiped about my mother-in-law, I wished that I had never gotten married or had children, I neglected my prayers’ and so on. He straightened himself and attempted to shake off his drowsiness as he heard the rustle and scrape of the mother taking her place on the other side of the grill.

“May the Lord be in your heart that you may confess your sins with true sorrow,” he said, making the sign of the cross over her shadowy form.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned,” she began, “it has been three weeks since my last confession. And in that time I have neglected my prayers, I have been late to Mass, I have lost my temper with my husband and my children, I hexed the neighbor, oh, three times I think….”

Father Peter suddenly felt wide awake. “I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?” he asked sharply.

She sighed, somewhat impatiently, and he could hear that her children were starting to whisper and giggle again out in the church; but he needed to know what she’d said.

“I hexed the neighbor three times and I am sorry about that. It was only a little stinging hex but he really must stop dumping his garden gnomes into my yard. They ruin the potatoes and frighten the chickens. I know that I should be more patient with him and try to set up better wards and repellents, and my dear husband always says that he will get around to it, but between his hours at the Ministry of Magic and his tinkering with Muggle…”

“I’m so sorry, but did you say the Ministry of Magic?”

“Yes.”

“Magic?” Father Peter was sure he had misheard her. Perhaps he was overtired from the long night. “But magic isn’t real.”

“Oh dear,” the woman said. “Father, am I the first witch you’ve had in confession?”

“Witch? What do you mean? Surely a good woman like yourself doesn’t consort with demons.”

“Demons!” she laughed. “Of course not. Witches and wizards don’t use demons to do magic. We’re regular people just like anyone else. Magic is something like, what do you Muggles call it? It’s like electricity. But we can do it with our minds instead of needing to create it in some other way.”

“I see.” He did not see at all, but he wanted to keep her talking long enough for him to decide if she were actually mad or simply teasing him. “What are Muggles?”

“Muggles are people who can’t do magic. Like you.”

“I see. And there are more like you?”

“Yes, of course. We have a school up north.”

“A school?”

“Hogwarts. And we have a Ministry of our own.”

“Then why have I never heard of this?”

“That would be because of the Statute of Secrecy. We find it is best to keep our existence secret from Muggles. There were all those witch burnings after all.”

“Ah. Well. I suppose that makes sense.” It did not make sense at all.

“You probably would have gone your whole life and not known about us at all, Father, except that you have to hear confession. May I go on? The children only have so much good behavior at one time.”

“Of course, please do.” His mind was reeling as she rattled off the rest of her sins.

“Let’s see, I shouted at my husband for spending too much time tinkering and enchanting Muggle things. You know, it’s actually illegal to enchant Muggle things, as he will knows, but it doesn’t stop him. I’ve been uncharitable and gossiped about others, especially the other pure-bloods on the board of governors. They keep trying to pass legislation requiring proof of blood status and it’s simply not right. But I shouldn’t go gossiping about them—let them sink their own ships. I wanted to run away from the children and never have to wash another dish or find another sock again. I screamed at Fred for turning his brother Ron’s teddy bear into a spider. I think that’s everything. If there’s anything else I forgot, I’m sorry for that too.”

Father Peter’s mind was whirling so quickly that he didn’t realize she was finished with her litany of self-accusation.

“Father,” she said, “you don’t believe me, do you?”

“To be perfectly honest, no, I don’t.”

Through the grill, he saw her draw a long, thin stick from a sleeve. She flicked it and whispered “ _Wingardium_ _Leviosa_.” 

His Breviary floated off of his lap, up to the top of the confessional. He stared, his mouth agape, as it turned circles above him before setting itself back onto his lap. 

“I can do a few more spells if you like, but I’m not sure how much longer the children will be quiet. Also, Fred needs to come in and confess what he did to his brother and Lord knows what else.”

“You’re really a witch?” Father Peter’s voice sounded awed.

“I am. A good witch too.”

“God bless you.”

Father Peter raised his hand over her and only half-paid attention as he gave her a light penance and said the words of absolution. His mind was still spinning and he tried to fit this cosmic shift into everything he had known up to now. He supposed that this was what Father Steven had been trying to tell him about all of those more things that are in Heaven and Earth. Father Peter had known about that in a vague way, but he had never known that it would be so immediate or so wonderful.

“Do you fly on brooms?” he asked suddenly.

The witch had just stood to leave, but she paused long enough to say, “Oh yes. It’s wonderful.”

“I imagine that it must be. You are doing good work, you know. Keep the faith and stay the course, and always be grateful that God has given you this gift. I would think that there are many who would love to be able to do what you can do without thinking.”

“You’re probably right, Father. Thank you.”

Father Peter was trying to imagine what it would be like to fly in the air with the wind rushing past him. It had always been a favorite dream of his, and the nights when he dreamt of flying were special ones to him. While he was picturing this, a boy took his place in the confessional.

“Bless me father for I have sinned, it’s been three weeks since my last confession,” the boy muttered. 

Father Peter only understood half of the words the boy said, both because he was muttering and because they included things like “exploding something” and “quidditch.” 

“And I turned my brother’s teddy bear into a spider. But he deserved it! He’s always following me and George around and he never leaves us alone, AND he broke my toy broom.” the boy finished angrily.

Since Father Peter had been prepared for this revelation, he was able to see past the fantastic content to the boy who was presenting it. He was just a boy like any other, annoyed with his little brother. 

“It is difficult when one wishes to be left alone and one’s brother will not cooperate. But why do you think your brother is following you around?” Father Peter asked gently.

“I don’t know.”

“Really? I wonder if he wants to be like you. He probably looks up to you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“It’s quite a lot of responsibility to be a big brother. But I suspect that you are exactly the sort of chap who can meet such a responsibility. You should protect your little brother, not scare him. Do you remember the story of baby Moses and how he was put in the river in a basket?”

“Yes, Father.”

“And do you remember what his big sister did while he was in that basket?”

“She ran after it and made sure that he was safe until Pharaoh’s daughter found him.”

“Exactly. She watched over her baby brother and kept him safe.”

“Oh.”

“I know that little brothers can be tiresome at times. I have a little brother myself.”

“I have a little brother _and_ a baby sister. And a twin!”

“My! You are very blessed. Then it is important that you try to be patient with your siblings and look after them.”

“Like Moses’s sister?”

“Exactly. Do you think you can try to do that?”

There was a long silence, and finally the boy said, “Yes, Father. I can try.”

“Good. For your penance I want you to say two _Hail_ _Marys_ , one for each of your younger siblings.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Now make your act of contrition.” 

The boy did so, and Father Peter absolved him as well. Now that he had recovered from the shock of learning about this hidden world, he had the presence of mind to do as he usually did and finish the confession by knocking on the wood of the confessional. 

“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good,” Father Peter said, and he was pleased that the boy answered correctly:

“His mercy endures forever.”

There was a din of feet shuffling and children whispering that signaled the magical family gathering itself to leave the church. No one else came for confession that morning, but Father Peter was glad to have a time of quiet to sit and think about the mystery that had just been revealed to him. In the last twenty-four hours he had watched someone pass through the veil that separated the living from the dead for the first time, and he had discovered a world that lived along side his own, but that was invisible to him. It was rather a lot to take in at one time, and he stared off into space, thinking at the largeness of it all. 

Gradually his mind came back to more mundane things. His stomach was growling and he would be very happy to tuck into a late breakfast as soon as his hour was over. He had the church cleaning to oversee, and he intended to go back to the Cartwright house that afternoon to pray with the family. The youth group was meeting in the afternoon—he wondered if that magical family ever came to such things—and there was the evening Mass that he was scheduled to say. He thought he’d best try to finish his Office now, as he didn’t want to have to do all of it that night before he slept. His eyes drifted down to the book in his lap, and his breath caught as he saw the prayer they held:

_“All ye works of the Lord Bless the Lord;_

_Praise and exalt Him above all forever!”_

Indeed. All ye works of the Lord Bless the Lord. For He had made all of them, and they all gave Him glory. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken the liberty of assuming that this incident occured when Fred was seven and Ron was five. Children typically do not go to confession before the age of seven.


End file.
